(BA) (4-year-programme) - The University of Hong Kong

111advances in military technology. Ruling elites invested heavily in ambitious buildings and urbanspaces. Architects and planners devised new styles, building types, and urban forms. Political thinkersreconsidered and redefined the idea of the city as a human community. The expansion of Europethrough exploration and colonization brought Western forms of urbanism to the Americas and Asia,and brought Europeans into contact with the urbanistic achievements of other cultures. Many ofEurope’s major urban centres acquired their defining features during this period. We will look atFlorence, Venice, Rome, London, Paris, Versailles and the cities of the Low Countries, as well asEuropean exports like Mexico City and, closer to home, Macau. As well as studying a range of majormetropolitan and colonial cities, we will examine the impact of broad social phenomena, such as thecourt society and the public sphere, and the development of building types and urban forms and ofnew forms of visual representation.Assessment: 100% coursework.FINE2079.History and theory of fashion (6 credits)No matter what our cultural background, clothes are the objects and fashion the art form closest to ourselves. Historians of art, including those specializing in the study of textiles and dress, have developeda variety of ways of talking about clothing that illuminate the rich cultural matrix from which itemerges. An understanding of the history of fashion, and the way that dress has been represented invarious contexts, can also provide an important tool for analyzing other works of art, includingportraits and the visual culture of exploration. This course is divided into four principalmethodological approaches: design history, material culture, constructions of gender, and fashiontheory. It includes readings based on the study of textiles, historical items of dress, representations ofcostume and the discourses of fashion. While concentrating on the development of fashion in theWest, processes of adoption and adaptation of extra-European commodities and ideas are alsoemphasised. Drawing on a variety of topics ranging from the sixteenth century to the present day, thecourse explores the intersection of the world of fashion with cultural exchange, consumption, classformation, and changing definitions of masculinity and femininity.Assessment: 100% coursework.FINE2080.Art in conflict (6 credits)This course examines the complicated links between art and politics during the 20th century, a periodtypified by continuous political unrest and military conflicts. We ask what possible functions artistsmight occupy in a time of war, and what role the visual might have in expressing political opinionsand promoting political ideas. By looking at a series of case studies from varied regions of the worldthroughout the century, we study the different positions artists have occupied in light of militaryconflicts and times of turmoil. Among the topics covered in the course are: propaganda; artisticreactions to the First World War; art in the service of the Russian Revolution; art under dictatorships;war photography and shock images; art during Apartheid; responses to the fall of the Soviet Union;9/11 in art; and the visual representation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Assessment: 100% coursework.FINE2081.Art history & its methods (6 credits)This course introduces students to art history as an academic discipline. It surveys the development ofthe study of both Asian and Western art and familiarises students with a range of methodologicalapproaches and their applications, from early traditions of art historical writing, through theemergence of art history as a distinct field of study, to its transformation and development up to thepresent. The course also instructs students in the writing and study skills specific to art history.Assessment: 100% coursework.Prerequisite: One 1000-level Fine Arts course.